


Clarke

by TopHat



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Florida, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23235304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat
Summary: A story about a Cauldron Cape.
Kudos: 4





	Clarke

I was born after the Golden Age of heroes. After Vikare died, after powers stopped being hopeful and started being invisible guns that damaged people carried around.  
  
I still get mad when I think about that. A football riot, a nameless killer, someone who probably didn’t fundamentally understand just how important the _first hero_ really was. Vikare could’ve torn them apart and made the streets run red with blood. There’s a forum thread that has his true power more or less figured out, and if he really wanted to no one should’ve been able to survive hitting him.  
  
But he held back.  
  
Honestly, Vikare perfectly sums up half of what’s wrong with the contemporary cape scene. A good guy gets powers, tries to be a hero, and his reward is death at the hands of the very people he tried to help.  
  
To this day I haven’t been able to look at a sports game with anything other than disgust.  
  
Powers could’ve been something special. A chance to make stories reality, to turn our fictional questions about supermen and women into practical solutions to real problems. For a while, that’s what happened, too. Capes were coming out, plenty were plying their trade to non-combative uses, and those that did try to fight were nominally on the side of law and order. Dad got a far away look in his eyes when he talked about it.  
  
Heroes.  
  
It still brings out childlike wonder in his eyes when he says that.  
  
Nowadays no one wants to write about heroes. About supermen and women. Instead pirates are the rage, worshipping a bygone era that ignores the plunder and rape of the literal criminals who roamed the seas, a phase that’s just a bandaid over the gaping wound of disillusionment that the slow and steady rise of villains has caused when they proved that the average human, when given superpowers after trauma, is more likely to resemble the Comedian than Clark Kent.  
  
There are people who buck the mold, though. Not the Triumvirate, nor the leaders of the Protectorate (with the exception of Myrddin). Mouse Protector, one of the few capes who bothers to fight with words as well as blows. The Mighty Pigeon, who never forgets that his audience is watching. Verdancy, who splits her time between restoring forests and setting traps for villains in her newly-lush city. People, not capes, who understand there’s more to being a hero than fighting bad guys and paying lip service to law enforcement, more than just being cops with superpowers. I know it when I see it, even if I don’t have a perfect definition for it.  
  
Yet.  
  


* * *

  
  
Forty nine thousand, four hundred seventy two dollars, and nineteen cents.  
  
Mom and Dad didn’t complain when I said I wanted to take a gap year and work before I went to college. Dad made some jokes about meeting the proletariat, Mom praised me for being willing to put in the effort on a blue-collar job, and neither of them pressed for anything more than that.  
  
Forty nine thousand, four hundred seventy two dollars, and nineteen cents.  
  
Nowhere near enough.  
  
I kept my expenses low. Cooked my own food, lived with Mom and Dad, biked to work, and filed my taxes carefully. I picked up the overtime, the holiday shifts, the weekend and night time extra pay. It didn’t go unnoticed, either. I got raises, plural. They knew me from when I was just a part-timer, and when I asked for opportunities to do more Chris gave me them. I met, exceeded, standards, got work done ahead of time and higher quality, and proved my worth.  
  
And it wasn’t enough.  
  
Forty nine thousand, four hundred seventy two dollars, and nineteen cents.  
  
I let a breath out as I lean back from the computer screen, running a hand through my hair as I look at my bank balance, then at the email.  
  
The very least of the vials on offer is a hundred thousand dollars, and the decent ones go up fast from there. The really high-tier powers are millions.  
  
I won’t be able to work anything close to full time in college. Add in all the unforeseen expenses, all the little costs of life, and I’ll be lucky to be breaking even at the end of every year. Once I get out of college, I could be making more, but not much more. That’ll ramp up over time, but that’ll be years, maybe decades down the line.  
  
Would I _want_ to be a hero by then?  
  
I shake my head, still trying to figure out the numbers. I need money, and I need it fast. No bank would give me a loan for something like this, not when it sounds so much like a scam. I don’t have any assets to liquidate. All I have is a future.  
  
And a college fund.  
  
I swallow at the thought, no longer seeing the screens.  
  
Yeah.  
  
That might work.  
  
Mom and Dad are big fans of higher education. That kind of comes with being doctors. They saw the trends, they put the pieces together, and they started saving money early. I can go anywhere in the states and graduate debt free if I want. That takes money, and I have the account number. Access to what must be north of two hundred thousand dollars.  
  
I re-evaluate the spread of options they offer. Two hundred thousand dollars changes the calculus. A lot. I still can’t even think about the truly powerful concoctions, but some of the mid-tier ones come into reach. Nothing mindblowing. Nothing strong.  
  
But maybe enough to make a difference.  
  
I close out the windows, clear my caches, shut down the computer, and grab my helmet.  
  
I need to make some withdrawals.  
  


* * *

  
  
I was born the year Behemoth tore himself free from the ground and ravaged Iran. The year everyone figured out that superpowered humans weren’t the most dangerous sentient thing in the world anymore. That evil existed, beyond fucked-up people doing fucked-up things. It was fifty feet tall, razed cities, and had one eye, and killed almost half of the people who tried to fight it.  
  
If the ideal hero died with Vikare, then the respectable villain was born, kicking and screaming, in his second fight, when pimps, drug dealers, and cold-blooded murderers threw themselves in waves into lighting, fire, and radiation, all in the vain hope of dealing a sliver of damage.  
  
So. Many. Died.  
  
You still can’t find footage of those fights. Too much back scatter. Too much excess energy in the air. Too many pointless suicide runs, before people got smart and figured out who to send where. How to keep the monster from roasting you all at once, or pulping the non-Brutes with a single roar.  
  
And then Leviathan.  
  
I remember emerging to see a wreck of a city, my home turned into a near-ruin by the green Endbringer. We were lucky, far from the shore, from whatever it was he wanted. We still moved, farther inland, away from the disaster zone. Once the worst of the recovery period was over, we moved back, but it wasn’t the same. Everything had been re-zoned, rebuilt, and repopulated. We didn’t know our neighbors and they didn’t know us. All we had was a mutual grief.  
  
That was enough.  
  
The Fallen tried to move into the power vacuum. The Crowley branch, who worshipped Leviathan and were closer to a really criminal frat than a gang. I remember hearing their bikes roar up and down the streets, how a few of my old friends joined up, some for the protection, some for the drugs, and some because they bought all the bullshit.  
  
I remember being old enough to know that the pops in the middle of the night weren’t firecrackers, that when Dad got called into the ER late at night it wasn’t because of a car accident.  
  
You don’t see many cultists on the street corners in the city proper anymore.  
  
I don’t think the people that gunned down Crester were heroes. I think they were angry, hard individuals made angrier and harder by a sentient, savage unnatural disaster. Good enough for practical situations that need practical answers.  
  
But I don’t think one moment of bravery against the impossible is enough. That those hard men and women should be all we aspire to.  
  
I don’t think the Endbringer make heroes.  
  
They just kill them.  
  


* * *

  
  
“You haven’t eaten anything for a day.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No sickness?”  
  
“No.”  
  
The black woman sitting across from me has a completely flat expression as she flips through the contract I signed. I resist the urge to bounce my leg. To drop my head to the table. To do anything to betray the anguish/guilt/resolution mixture that swirls in my chest and makes me want to cut this whole deal off, grab my money, and run back to Mom and Dad and pretend like this never happened.  
  
Want the ends, want the means.  
  
Do I not want to be a hero? No. Is this impossible to handle? No. Simple, not easy.  
  
I take a deep breath and go through my relaxation exercise. Put the problem in a sphere. Let the emotion run through every limb. Observe it. By observing it, I am no longer feeling it.  
  
Repeat until it’s true.  
  
“Here,” the woman says, holding an uncorked vial over the table. I take it, and for one brief moment consider dashing it against the wood.  
  
Then I throw it back in one long motion a coworker taught me during her retirement party. Smooth. Fast. Enough. I barely taste the fluid, and what I feel on the back of my throat is closer to battery acid than limoncello.  
  
I slam the vial onto the table and sit patiently, raising an eyebrow like I haven’t just crossed a line.  
  
“There should be a burning,” she says.  
  
Ah. There it is.  
  
I flare my nostrils and grit my teeth, tensing my hands but not grabbing the seat. Fuck. That hurts. It escalates, moving from too-close-to-a-furnace to feet-on-a-Chicago-summer-sidewalk to stovetop-I-leaned-on-once to far more than I’ve experienced before.  
  
“It won’t be long,” the woman says, a million miles away. “Please remain calm.”  
  
Calm.  
  
Yeah, that won’t work.  
  
I double down and force myself to unclench my teeth, even as the burning somehow gets worse. I try to embrace the heat, let the fire tear through my flesh and set my nerves ablaze and I smile against it.  
  
 _Is that the best you can do_? I ask it in my mind.  
  
It seems like something a hero would say.  
  
The burning grows and grows and grows and I force myself not to react, to watch it, to take it all in, to know it until there is nothing left that can hurt me. I endure it further, slowly letting myself tense up more, rationing out the little actions as I try to maintain some objectivity.  
  
I count them off until nothing is left. Then I try to exist in the pain, a single point of coherence. I feel myself eroding, until only two competing senses of shame and pride keep me from crying out.  
  
I almost snap.  
  
And just like that the burning is gone.  
  
I gasp at the sudden lack of pressure, muscles relaxing all at once as I hunch forward, one hand flying to my head and the other catching myself against the table as I take great, heaving gulps of air.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“Did you see anything?” the woman asks. I shake my head, still to haggard for words, still trying to get my head together. “Stay sitting for a minute,” she says, “then attempt to experiment with your powers.” I hear her chair scrape as she drags it away from the table, the clack of heels, the opening and closing of a door.  
  
I stay here, curled, gasping, a sweating, until my breathing returns to its regular, even pace. I take one more deep breath for good measure, then slowly sit up, staring at the table.  
  
I bought a Thinker vial. Not exactly a classic power set, but those cost money I don’t have, so I went for the longest lever I could grab to move the world. Pens versus swords and all that.  
  
The problem, of course, is trying to figure out how it works.  
  


* * *

  
  
I grew up in time to see the Slaughterhouse Nine begin their rampage.  
  
That was the one thing about the old comics that never really made any sense. Why someone like Doom, like Luthor, never just up and solved the world’s problems. Fuck aliens, fuck super weapons, one super-genius declaring war on disease could become God-Emperor by popular vote. Instead they spend time trying to take over the world through military might or weather control machines.  
  
Most villains on Bet aren’t that stupid. They have reason to rob, to assault, to destroy. Not good reasons, not always the kind that keep them out of prison, but ones that make sense when you step into their shoes and consider their mindsets. A lot of it is do unto others taken a step too far, or the sunk costs fallacy at its worst, both understandable, if not necessarily forgivable.  
  
And then there’s the Nine.  
  
They really are supervillains. Not criminals that happen to have powers, not good people in bad situations, not businessmen with a shit code of ethics and no vision of the biggest picture. Just monsters wearing human skin, walking around committing atrocities in a way that only they can. Why?  
  
Because it’s fun for them.  
  
Why would the Joker still be alive in the real world? Because he’s friends with a cannibal that can ignore physics. Why hasn’t Reed Richards fixed famine? Because he went mad and decided to kill anyone else who might try to change things for the better.  
  
They’re not an isolated case, either. The Yangban enslave any parahuman unlucky enough to end up in China, literal Nazis run rampant in Europe, South America is a series of puppet governments and guerilla warlords, and Africa is in a constant continent-wide civil war. Shit like the Nine happens everywhere, and only the relative stability the Protectorate provide keeps North America from turning into a feudal mess.  
  
Mom and Dad were college students. Dad protested ‘Nam, Mom wrote a paper on gender segregation, and they both worked in the Peace Corps. They both know that the world wasn’t a safe place, and that ‘that could never happen here’ was a lie.  
  
I still heard the late-night conversations, deadly serious words exchanged between two adults who’re both planning for the worst. I was old enough to understand what the voices were saying, and young enough to think that I could contribute something meaningful to the conversation. The three of us had a talk, I went back to bed, and in the morning Mom and Dad decided that we weren’t going to try to find somewhere safer.  
  
After all, in a slowly-collapsing hellworld, the least-fucked place is paradise.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Introducing the newest member of the Jacksonville Protectorate, Pioneer!”  
  
I smile wide as I stride across the stage, resisting the urge to adjust my hat for the umpteenth time. Apparently a blonde spot is enough of an identifying mark that it needs covering up, which meant either a hat or going bald. Now that the sweat from the summertime heatwave is slowly gluing the brim of the coonskin cap to my head, I’m beginning to regret not taking the second option. I’m also regretting the fringe long sleeve coat and heavy pants with kevlar underneath them, but maybe I try to figure out a summer costume at some point.  
  
“Hello everyone, it’s a pleasure to meet you all,” I say, registering my discomfort and moving on. “Anyway, I’m here to answer questions and keep the peace. Since the latter seems to be fairly in hand at the moment” — pause for a polite chuckle — “fire away.” Even the mosquitos of this god-forsaken state filled with old people can’t drown out the wonder of the moment, and I don’t even have to pretend to be excited.  
  
“What are your powers?” a reporter asks, a tall woman with a spiral notepad in one hand and a fairly flat expression.  
  
“I can pick up any skill I see,” I answer, pulling a trio of small balls out and beginning to juggle one-handed. It took nearly a month to figure it out, and even then only a serendipitous karaoke night tipped me off. “Circus tricks, defensive driving, tap-dancing, basically anything and everything that requires physical movement,” I list, sleight-of-handing a hacky sack into my other palm, then tossing it up and bouncing it between my feet, stepping back as I add more objects to my routine. “They stack, by the way,” I add, kicking the hacky sack high and jumping off into a standing front flip, coming up in time to catch each juggling balls as they come down and bowing low to snatch the last one before it hits the floor. That gets a round of applause, and after waiting for it to die out I go back up to the podium and point to a different reporter. “Yes, you in the yellow shirt?”  
  
The questions are easy. Why am I in Jacksonville? Because I was willing to move and they needed help here. What do I do in my spare time? Lots of music and books. What’s my history before joining the Protectorate? Graduated, got powers, decided to join the heroes. Nothing I haven’t considered.  
  
“What made you want to be a hero?”  
  
Perfect.  
  
“I grew up reading a bunch of pre-Scion comics,” I start. I have to be careful here and strike the right balance between critical and understanding, otherwise I’m going to be torn to shreds. That or be taken as a fool. “The really old stuff, the kind they made around World War Two to drum up morale and sell War Bonds. A lot of it doesn't age very well, but the core concepts actually have some staying power. I mean, we’ve still got Who Would Win arguments involving Superman, don’t we?” I add, putting on a small smile. No audible response, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It might just mean they’re thinking. I drop the smile as I go back to talking. “Anyway, I looked around at the cape scene and pretty quickly found out that Joe Simon and Jerry Siegel didn’t get much right about powers. More chaos and attention to collateral damage than damsels in distress. Bob Kane got a little closer to the mark, but even he thought a little too small. All his runs focused street-level crime, not the national and international problems which cause the bulk of today's issues. I think it’s alright for them to not predict the future fifty years down the line though,” I clarify. “I mean, I’m living in this time and it’s weird to me.” That gets a chuckle. Good.  
  
“When I look at the Protectorate, I see the closest thing to superheroes that exists in the modern day,” I continue. “It’s probably overly romantic, idealistic, and silly, but I do want to try to and live up to the ideal that Captain America and Superman set. Step one in that is learning from people who know a thing or three about hero-ing,” I say, flashing a smile, “So I put on a mask, went to the nearest PRT building, and asked how I could help.”  
  
After that the press conference wraps up pretty fast. There’s a time block for civilian questions, which range from serious inquires on specific issues I know nothing about to a marriage proposal. I give each the consideration it deserves, then head back to the Protectorate base for some much needed rest.  
  
Tomorrow I begin my hero-ing in earnest.  
  


* * *

  
  
There are times that I find my job to be fulfilling and not enjoyable. Those typically involve interacting with the Wards, doing PR stunts, and paperwork in general.  
  
The Wards are good kids, but they typically need better parents, a therapist, or really don’t actually require help at all. I can nod in the right places, offer condolences when necessary, and advice or help when they ask, but even that’s an act. I just don’t get why they can’t push past their troubles, why it’s so hard to look at their asshole classmates and decide to cut them out of their lives.  
  
None of them hate me, but they also don’t go to me for advice first anymore.  
  
PR stunts are both better and worse. Better because I don’t have to think too hard about smaller personal details, worse because I have to be even more one-dimensional than normal. Playing the boyscout isn’t hard, per say, but being polite for hours on end, keeping a smile up, watching every word, and making it all seem effortless...  
  
It gets draining.  
  
I’m pretty good at putting them together, though. Find a group of people that need a pick-me-up, talk to the folks in charge, and figure out a date that works for everyone. There’s a million and one other steps, but the rest is just window dressing. It’s dull, repetitive, and the sort of thing that I’ve picked up a lot of experience with. Less mind numbing than paperwork, but it's a close-run thing.  
  
Ah, paperwork. The white blood of bureaucracy, which ensures that when everything is going well everyone knows it and when something is going wrong everyone knows who has fucked up and how. It serves a vital role in modern society and I can honestly say more good work has been done by filling out a form than any number of righteous right-crosses.  
  
That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like I’m just spinning my wheels when I sit down at my desk and scratch out the same damn letters after a patrol goes by with nothing of significance happening. That doesn’t make the steady lack of progress towards reinvigorating the hero scene any less frustrating, with maybe one in three capes bothering to hear my ideas out and maybe one in three of those bothering to take it seriously. It doesn't mean that I don't need sleeping pills to quiet the turbulence in my head when I lay down for the night, too frustrated to sleep.  
  
Anyone can change the world. And I’m _not_.  
  


* * *

  
  
“How’s it going?” I call out. By way of reply Eastside screeches at me, loud enough to rattle windows and set off a car alarm. Her feathers are standing on end, clothes shredded and talons slowly crumpling the roof of the car she’s crouched on top of. I nod sympathetically. “Yeah, I’ve had days like that. Want to go grab a coffee?” She lifts one arm, structured like a bat’s and covered in golden feathers, and I roll behind a car.  
  
A barrage of feathers, heavy as tire irons and moving at professional-fastball speeds, fly over my head, destroying the storefront display. I wince. A business ruined, at least for a little while. My fault, at least partially.  
  
“Seriously, if you want to talk I’m ninety-nine percent sure I can keep the PRT from foaming you. That gives you more time to figure a way out, right? Win-win.” Another screech, this one angrier, and I feel the car rock as the other side caves in. Someone’s hard work, mutilated, and for what? “Okay, now it’s more like ninety percent sure, but I can’t help if I don’t know-”  
  
“You’re the fucking problem!” Eastside screams, still screechy but intelligible this time. “You and your fucking mission and your fucking rules and your _fucking_ act!” she rants, her voice dropping into more human tones as it goes on. “If I can get you fucking gone, maybe I can finally get a fucking break!” As she pauses for breath, I carefully peek my head over the car hood.  
  
Instead of the bastard child of a bat and a bald eagle as imagined by Giger, a Native American girl not older than fifteen with her hair in a ragged pixie cut is crouched on top of the car, panting, fingers dwarfed by the rents in the metal next to them. She doesn’t bother to cover up as she goes from all fours to standing, instead clenching her fists and glaring at me.  
  
“You fucking go, and I’ll be a good little Ward. I’ll take you up on your fucking offer, go back to school, hell, maybe wear clothes again” she adds, lips twerking up for a moment. “You’ve just gotta go north, asshole.”  
  
I sigh as I stand up, taking off the ridiculous cap and and running my fingers through my hair. I get it cut as close as I can without looking like someone straight out of the military, and it somehow still ends up soaked through with sweat by the end of the day.  
  
“Random acts of mass destruction don’t really endear you to parole officers,” I say, stalling for time. “If this was all just to call me out, I’m going to have to-”  
  
“Don’t you say a damn thing about the Protectorate hotline,” she interrupts darkly, feathers pushing out on her arms. I survey the street around me, idly scratching my ribs. When I don’t find a sticky note waiting for me, I nod once. Not ready yet.  
  
“Okay. No Protectorate plug. Gotcha. Could we at least get some place with fewer people in the crossfire?” I ask, tilting my upper body and pointing down Yaga street. “There’s a park-”  
  
“Where you’ve set up a trap to take me out,” Eastside interrupts again, snorting. “You think I’m an idiot?”  
  
“If I did, I’d just shoot you in the knees and elbows from three blocks away,” I say frankly. “I’m talking to you nicely because I really do want you to join the white hats, and I’m trying to show you that the perks of being backed by the government are worth the asspains.” I’m not even lying. Eastside has a more-than-decent Brute rating, mobility, a fairly high-impact ranged attack, and enough brains to find a way to stay independent of both major gangs in the city for almost a year. Dumb muscle either gets recruited or killed, I fight competent muscle all the time and usually come out on top, and smart muscle doesn’t work for anybody. Well, they don’t for anybody who they don’t want to and for anything less than exceptional pay.  
  
Which could potentially be the United States Government.  
  
“Yeah, and you’re a real reliable source,” Eastside says sarcastically, shaking her head and standing up. “One minute you’re talking about screwing up my chance at parole, the next about why I should turn myself in? You ever get tired of all the bullshit you pedal?”  
  
 _All the time_.  
  
“My bullshit aside, why’d you start tearing up Eighth street?” I ask, sitting down on a fire hydrant. “There’s got to be easier and less eye-catching methods of stress relief.”  
  
“Don’t give me straight lines like that pedo,” she says, glaring at me. I lift my hands in surrender.  
  
“My bad,” I say. “Question still stands though.” For a long moment I think she isn’t going to answer. Then she sighs and sits down herself, one leg hanging off the edge of the car and the other pulled against her chest.  
  
“I got hungry, so I went to get a sandwich. Someone recognized me, pulled a gun, and I freaked,” she says, words barely audible across the street. “Still don’t have a great handle on this whole” — she motions to her body — “eagle thing. Shit looks different in that. Brain’s different too.” I make a mental note to add a Thinker rating to her file.  
  
“I don’t think Joe and Anne’s antique store deserves to suffer for his sins,” I comment, casting a glance at the destroyed storefront. Eastside rolls her eyes.  
  
“You start trying to convert me and we throw down. Also, fuck you, not everyone gets a power that’s all upside,” she hisses, eyes narrowing. I’m losing her.  
  
“You’re right,” I say, nodding. “I lucked out. Doesn’t make that window any less broken.”  
  
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she says, changing the subject as she drops her head to one side. “Something other than bother a girl trying to get a turkey on white with all the fixings?”  
  
“Swampwalkers are in hiding, the Sons of America are gearing up for something new, and you’re actually doing a fair bit of damage,” I say, standing up and stretching high, then lacing my fingers behind the back of my head. I feel a sticky note. I nod once and gaze calmly at her. “Anyway. You’re fucking shit up. I’m here to stop that. Are we going to have a problem?”  
  
For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence.  
  
Then she laughs.  
  
“Guess I’ll have cajun,” she says, standing up and brushing nonexistent dust off her knees. “Also, you sound so fucking stupid when you say shit like that,” she says. Then feathers burst out of her pores, sickening cracking noises echo across the street as her joints shift and realign, and soon enough the bird/bat thing is back. It gives me one last baleful wail, orange eyes angry and full of hate, and she kicks off the ground, flying straight up into the air, clearing the nearby rooftops in one long jump.  
  
Then there’s a sound like a metal mallet striking a side of beef and she goes flying straight back down, impacting the concrete with a loud _splat_ and softer _crack_. I slowly walk over towards the rapidly de-feathering form of Eastside, who’s looking more than a little dazed.  
  
“Parahuman known as Eastside, you’re wanted on multiple counts of property damage, reckless endangerment of the public, assault with a parahuman ability, and public indecency,” I say in a monotone, pulling out a pair of regular police cuffs and secure her hands behind her back. “You are accorded a number of legal rights, including the right to an attorney, the right to a fair trial by a jury of your peers, and you are proofed against self-incrimination. If you do not understand these rights, they can be explained again. Do you understand?”  
  
“Fuck. You,” she manages, getting one knee under her and making a brave attempt to stand. Then her eyes roll up and she falls over sideways, unconscious.  
  
I pull out my phone, hit three on the speed dial, and hold it next to my ear.  
  
“Hello hello, Babes, Bullets, and Bodybags, for all your illicit needs,” Karrin says.  
  
“Thank you, Archimedes,” I say flatly. “Now then, how far out is the PRT?”  
  
“Not more than five minutes,” she says, all business once more. “How’d it go?”  
  
“She wants me specifically gone,” I say, digging around in my pocket for an Altoid tin. “Give her that and she offered to try the Wards.” I pop one of the candies into my mouth and begin sucking, savoring the sensation of clarity at the back of my throat.  
  
“Guess some people just don’t like you,” Archimedes says matter-of-factly. “Anyway, it’s not our problem anymore. Now legal gets to earn its keep.” I don’t comment on her callous disregard for a nice girl in a bad situation. One of the many ways I help keep the peace.  
  
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Thanks for the help.”  
  
“No problem hon,” she replies cheerily, hanging up the instant she finishes the last word. I toss the tin up in the air, then start juggling it with one hand, thinking.


End file.
